KEONJHAR, Feb. 5: Barbil police along with mines and forest department raided at Tangura Mines of Thakurani A block in a reserve forest yesterday early in the morning and seized seven iron ore loaded dumpers when they were on their way to Jharkhand.Police caught six people engaed in excavation of iron ores while others escaped.

While the police has pegged the seized 100 tons of iron ores pricing at around Rs 1.5 lakh, sources said that ores costing more than Rs one crore were still lying open after being excavated from Thakurani 'A' block which is under the Mines and Forest Department.Survey report points out that this Thakurani block has iron ores underneath 1300 hectare of land.

Police sources said that the local mafias have engaged some 400 labourers of the locality and neighbouring states in the illegal excavation of iron ores.But all of the labourers disappeared from the area seeing the police yesterday. After the raid police demolished all the houses where the villagers used to stay.

The arrested persons were identified as Rajesh Gope and Dhiren Gope of Jagannathpur, Jharkhand, Sadhu Charan Banara of Jhikpani, Jharkhand, Sonu Munda of Murga, Sushil Baman of Serenda and Kumar Nayak of Jajpur.

At Rourkela also the mining department seized two trucks carrying iron ore on false documents

BIMARU - But Who's Responsible?BIMARU yes, but is it Bihar or the central planners?

Bihar and Biharis have struggled with an image problem for a long time. The enormity of Bihar's image problem can be gauged by the fact that this is mentioned in the first paragraph itself of the World Bank report on Bihar. I quote:

"The people of Bihar - civil society, businessmen, government officials, farmers and politicians - also struggle against an image problem that is deeply damaging to Bihar's growth prospect. An effort is needed to correct this" ( Link )

The epithet BIMARU has perhaps done the maximum damage to the image of Bihar. This acronym was created by taking the first letter of the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. By his own admission, the person who created this pejorative is none other than the demographer Ashish Bose. ( Link)

Basic courtesy demands one would not call a person sick even if he were actually sick. And here, we are not talking of an individual, but a state of eight crore people. But this unfeeling academic has been on his mission of damaging Bihar and Biharis for decades. I read some of Ashish's writings and found it nothing short of supercilious and arrogant.

If he were just an academic, one would have ignored him. Unfortunately, Ashish Bose and his ilk have huge influence on the Indian policy making and the planning process.

That parliamentary constituencies have not been re-demarcated since 1971 general election in spite of huge demographic changes appears to be due to his influence. This skews the principle of equal representation to the voters.

With such utter lack of basic respect and empathy, can anyone reasonably expect people like him to do justice to Bihar's needs?

Ashish has taught and guided a number of students, who man important position at the planning commission of India. Is it any surprise then that Bihar does not have any centre of higher learning: IIT, IIM, central university, CSIR, Defence or agri lab. Even the British built PUSA was shifted from Samastipur to Delhi because of perceived earth quake problems!!! Gujarat had an earthquake a couple of years back. What, may I ask, did they shift from Gujarat?

Sadly, we Biharis are so much lacking in self confidence that we cannot muster the courage to complain while the 'samaj ke thekedar' like the honorable Ashish Bose get away blaming it on us. It is hilarious how casteism and land reforms are given as reasons for inadequate allocation for development, and introducing highly discriminatory policies like freight equalisation scheme.

What else but image is the reason behind the highways passing through Bihar (and Jharkhand) not serving its cities and towns, as if they were planned to transport troops and supplies over enemy territory in the quickest possible time. Coal linkages from neighbouring Jharkhand are prepared keeping the interest of Punjab in mind.

Ranchi, Feb. 5: To discourage the increasing number of students migrating every year to technical colleges in other states like Maharashtra and Karnataka, the government today began the process of putting final touches to the draft of the Jharkhand Technical University Bill.

The principal secretary of science and technology, and information technology, Ashok Kumar Basu, told The Telegraph that at present, seats in the five technical institutions operating in the state are limited to 2,500.

"By the end of 2011, the state would boast of at least 20,000 seats, so that students passing their Plus Two exams would no longer have to flee to other states," Basu stressed.

Medical and engineering colleges in parts of the state are charging exorbitant amounts as annual fees, ranging from Rs 3 lakh to 4 lakh.

According to a Supreme Court judgement, fees for technical colleges are to be decided by a committee to be set up in the state headed by a retired high court judge. A committee has been set up in Jharkhand to decide on the fees to be charged for 2007-08 to 2010-11.

For ST and SC students, a discount of 50 to 75 per cent is under consideration. "At present, technical colleges are charging Rs 30,000 annually," he said.

The principal secretary pointed out that all efforts were being made to finalise the draft bill so that it can be put up before the Assembly latest by monsoon session.

He said the bill was being drafted by a committee, headed by vice-chancellor of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, S.K.Mukherjee.

All those who had been loudly proclaiming to anyone who cared to listen, that the super soccer match between Brazil's Sao Paulo team and Mohammedan Sporting would be a huge washout, especially since the India-West Indies one dayer, too, was scheduled for the same day, are now nowhere to be heard. or, after the huge crowd turnout at JRD Tata Sports Complex, they have been completely silenced. It's now the officials, who are loudly crowing, as to how tickets were actually even sold in black for the event! It seems hard work and soccer won the day, as always.

Access, so what?

Jharkhand Khadi and Village Industries Board chairman Jaynendu may not have won the chief minister's heart, but he has all the attention he needs of the deputy chief minister, Sudhir Mahto, who is also the state's industry minister. ecently, they were seen gossiping together in the VIP lounge of the state hangar, while waiting for the chief minister to arrive. Koda and Mahto were scheduled to fly off together and Jaynendu had come to see them off. But while Mahto gave him easy access, Koda kept his distance. But will this access be of use?